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Amazon halts all employee travel, Google adds new restrictions due to coronavirus – TechRepublic

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Amazon bans all nonessential employee travel in the US and internationally, and Google expands travel restrictions after an employee is stricken with coronavirus.

In an unexpected move, both Amazon and Google announced new restrictions Friday on employee travel due to concerns over coronavirus and COVID-19, the illness the virus causes.

Amazon has asked all of its 798,000 employees to stop all nonessential travel, both domestic and internationally, immediately, according to an Amazon spokesperon. This is after Amazon already restricted employee travel to China earlier this month.

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The cancellations are due to fear of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The CDC has now 64 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US, including 47 cases among repatriated individuals. The latest two cases in the US are individuals in northern California and they both have contracted the disease from unknown sources, making them the first possible “community spread” instances of the disease in the US. So far, there have been 2,867 deaths from coronavirus around the world, and there are 83,861 cases globally. Hospitals in the US and the UK are preparing for a coronavirus outbreak.

Travel also restricted for Amazon employees on worldwide team 

The New York Times reported on Friday that Amazon employees on its worldwide operations team, which oversees technology and logistics, were told not to plan any meetings requiring travel until at least April, when the company hoped to have a better sense of the outbreak’s impact.

SEE: Coronavirus having major effect on tech industry beyond supply chain delays (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Google expanding employee travel restrictions

Google has expanded its employee travel restrictions, now adding South Korea and Japan to the list of areas that already included China, Iran and two Italian regions of Lombardy and Veneto. This occurred after a Google employee tested positive for coronavirus, according to the company. 

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“We can confirm that one employee from our Zurich office has been diagnosed with the coronavirus,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “They were in the Zurich office for a limited time, before they had any symptoms. We have taken —- and will continue to take — all necessary precautionary measures, following the advice of public health officials, as we prioritize everyone’s health and safety.”

Google also announced that it is canceling its Google News Initiative Summit because of concerns over coronavirus. The conference had been scheduled for late April in Sunnyvale, Calif. 

“We regret that we have to cancel our global Google News Initiative summit but the health and well-being of our guests is our No. 1 priority,” Richard Gingras, vice president of news at Google, said in a statement.

Google has not yet announced any plans to cancel its own annual developer conference, Google I/O, scheduled for May 12-14 in Mountain View, Calif. 

Tech conferences around the world impacted

Meanwhile,
tech conferences around the globe
have been either cancelled, postponed, or have had significant exhibitors pull out for fear of coronavirus.

“The coronavirus has caused record-breaking event cancellations and postponements worldwide. Compared to last February, there is a 500% increase (and growing) in the cancellation or postponement of significant events. This past month (February 2020), we have seen more than 220 significant and major events between 5,000 to hundreds of thousands of attendees be cancelled or postponed. To give context, there were just 45 significant and major events canceled or postponed in February 2019. And, this is just the tip of the iceberg – we can all expect to see more global events cancelled in the coming months related to the coronavirus concerns,” said Campbell Brown, CEO and co-founder, PredictHQ.

Some of the major conferences cancelled in the past few weeks include Mobile World Congress, which PredictHQ’s data puts the event’s direct economic value at $5 million, Cisco Live Melbourne, Facebook’s annual marketing conference, DEF CON China and the Tokyo Marathon.

How to handle changing travel plans amid an outbreak

The quick-changing travel plans amid an outbreak like COVID-19 can make it difficult for companies to juggle employee travel plans and schedules.

In early February, before tech conferences began being canceled, and before companies started pulling out of events, companies were already limiting employee travel to China. At that time, Martin Ferguson, vice president of public affairs at American Express Global Business Travel, told TechRepublic’s Veronica Combs that he was seeing an increase in clients stopping all nonessential business travel to, from and within Wuhan and mainland China as well as areas surrounding mainland China. Some companies were also asking employees to work from home for two weeks after traveling to China as a precaution. 

With uncertainty affecting many of the decisions being made right now, companies need to keep employee travel plans flexible. For companies that are still allowing travel, request that employees book airline fares that can be canceled or rebooked without penalty, and hotel rooms that can be canceled without penalty. This way, if a conference or event is canceled, the company will not incur additional costs as a result of the employee canceling their trip.

Also, keep schedules flexible. For any upcoming conferences that have yet to be booked, wait. Watch the website for the conference daily to see if the main sponsors are still attending, and if any news is released about the event. Ask employees to wait as long as possible before booking airfare and hotel.

To encourage travel, some airlines are offering free flight cancellations or changes on all newly-booked flights. JetBlue is offering free flight cancellations or changes on all flights booked between February 27 and March 11, if the flight is completed by June 1, 2020, and the credit can be used for future travel. Alaska Airlines is also allowing new tickets booked from February 27 through March 12 for travel through June 1, 2020 to be cancelled or changed and the funds used for future travel. 

SEE: Policy pack: Guidelines for remote workers (TechRepublic Premium)

What to tell employees regarding travel and the coronavirus

As previously reported in TechRepublic, Emma Follansbee, an associate at The National Law Review, recommended what employers should do, and what they should avoid, when discussing travel and the coronavirus with employees:

  • Provide education and information on the virus  — Be brief and repeat what official sources have stated without adding information.The communication goal is to instill confidence in employees that the company is taking proactive steps as necessary
  • Reinforce sick leave policies — The flu season has been worse than usual in the US this season. This is a good time to reiterate sick leave policies. Follansbee also recommends training managers to send people home if they are sick.
  • Consider a temporary travel opt-out policy — Employers should consider temporarily suspending travel directly to a region with a high number of coronavirus cases. Follansbee also suggested that companies consider requiring employees traveling to or from the infected regions to refrain from reporting to work.
  • Don’t offer medical opinions and misinformation: Take a “less is more” approach.
  • Don’t institute employee medical examinations and quarantines: Employers that isolate or quarantine employees when public health agencies have not yet done could be violating protections under the Americans With Disability Act, medical privacy laws, and state wage and hour laws.                  
  • Don’t use selective enforcement of travel opt-outs: This policy must be applied equally across all employees. For example, employers cannot require pregnant or disabled employees to opt out of travel, while requiring other employees to continue traveling to a region. 

Also see 

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Amazon has halted all employee travel due to the coronavirus.

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Amazon has halted all employee travel due to the coronavirus.

Image: Smith Collection/Gado / Getty Images

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Ask Andy: How can you tell whether a startup is a good place to work? When is it safe to disclose a mental-health challenge to coworkers?

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As a software developer who would like to work for a startup, what should I look for in a company so that I know it’s legit? If I am putting a lot of work into a product, I want to know that at minimum it’s for a legitimate company and founder—not just another person with an overdone app idea that knows nothing about the tech world. Sarah C.

If you’re learning the startup game, the best bet here is to go later-stage. Focus on a pre-IPO company that is growing quickly, has raised money from blue-chip investors, and is getting positive buzz in the market that it will go public within the next two years.

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Then, don’t believe any of it.

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Network your way into three of the company’s team members on LinkedIn or through your network. Have three virtual or IRL coffees. Have them tell you about the culture: If they’re learning; if the company’s really growing; and most importantly, whether or not they respect and, ideally, admire the leadership.

Keep looking until you find this vetted opportunity.

That’s a systematic, rational approach. But that’s not the only way to go. You could throw it all out the window.

Find a company where you believe in the mission. One where you fall in love with the product or service. You might already be a high LTV customer or a power user. Check your credit card statement and your app home screen to source ideas. Your passion for the mission will make it work for you for some time, even if the company doesn’t work in the long run.

However you get there, once you’re inside for a year or two, you’ll be learning.

You may have to switch horses. That’s okay.

When you do, you’ll know more people, you’ll have more insight, and the path on what to pick next will be clearer. Heck, you might even notice an inflection point and meet a cofounder that leads to you starting a company yourself.

It’s like dating.

You probably won’t marry your first love—but you might. If you don’t, your judgment will iteratively improve. And the good news is unlike a marriage, you can change out your partner every few years. (What I’ve found, though, is that the most successful people professionally, and those who generate the most wealth, have more like 5- to 10-year runs.)

Trust your intuition. Follow your heart on the mission or product. Then, don’t trust yourself.  Study the market. Use the product.  And do at least three off-list references outside of who you interview with. Read every single Glassdoor entry.

And then jump!

You’ll be fine.

Do you think you could have shared your mental health conditions publicly BEFORE you were professionally successful, and still have been successful? Or was the fact that you had already achieved professional success what allowed you to be open? Zack

No, I don’t think I could have shared before we succeeded. I wouldn’t have had the courage to, and I feared it might be career-limiting.

Then again, it was almost seven years ago that I had my I-can’t-deny-this-any-longer moment with my Bonobos colleagues and investors. As of today, I think it’s becoming more possible to be candid about mental health. I hope we can move to a world where I could have been more open, sooner, at least selectively with my leadership team and board.

Some entrepreneurs ask me when to tell their VCs about the mental-health challenge or mental-health diagnosis they wrestle with. I always say the same thing: at a breakfast meeting, four months after you’ve closed the round and hit your numbers. Nobody cares about your neurodivergence if you’re performing—and most VCs actually know enough to know that most founders have more going on than meets the eye.

With your team, I think it’s doable, even now. Perhaps especially now. The truth is, they know. They know you deal with stuff because they’re around you. And the vulnerability you share in disclosing will multiply their respect for you. More importantly, it’ll give those team members the space to reciprocally share their stuff with their colleagues, and potentially you as well, and bring their full selves to work.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

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Take-Two Buys Gearbox And Its New ‘Borderlands’ Game From Embracer

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If you’re a game developer owned by Embracer Group at this point, you are nervous about layoffs, shutdowns or game cancellations after the last few years. But now, there is a somewhat happy ending for one of them, Gearbox.

It’s just been announced that Take-Two, which owns GTA developer Rockstar, will purchase Gearbox for $460 million. This also includes the properties Gearbox owns, the Borderlands and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands franchises, Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms and Duke Nukem. The report says Gearbox has six games in development, five sequels, including a new Borderlands game, the not-announced-but-definitely-happening Borderlands 4. Here’s Strauss Zelnick:

“Our acquisition of Gearbox is an exciting moment for Take-Two and will strengthen our industry-leading creative talent and portfolio of owned intellectual property, including the iconic Borderlands franchise,” said Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two. “This combination enhances the financial profile of our existing projects with Gearbox and unlocks the opportunity for us to drive increased long-term growth by leveraging the full resources of Take-Two across all of Gearbox’s exciting initiatives.”

Gearbox has been working with 2K and Take-Two for decades, so it was a logical place for them to land. This is, of course, not a great look for Embracer, who only purchased Gearbox three years ago. The price tag back then was “worth up to $1.3 billion” but there were a lot of strings attached to that where it’s not necessarily the case that selling for $$460 million netted them a ~$900 million loss.

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As for what this means for gamers, it would seem something like the Borderlands franchise is now on more stable ground, as it was hard to believe any project at Embracer is fully safe these days. Last year, Embracer quietly cancelled 29 different unannounced games and shut down seven studios in a six month period including Volition and Free Radical Design. That came with around 1,400 layoffs. More recently, Embracer laid off 97 people at Eidos in Janaury and cancelled a Deus Ex game.

Sufficed to say, those at Gearbox probably feel pretty good about this. And as for Take-Two, Borderlands is still a valuable IP, and Tiny Tina’s Wonderland was a surprise hit. There’s a new Homeworld game coming as well. In an era for multi-billion dollar acquisition, Gearbox for $460 million doesn’t seem that bad. That’s probably a third of what GTA 6 will sell on day one next year.

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What's Brewing in the iPhone 16 Rumor Mill? AI, Action Buttons and More – CNET

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As the iPhone 15 settles into the market, the tech community is buzzing with anticipation for Apple’s next-generation handset, which is expected to be named “iPhone 16.” 

We’ve heard whispers about the iPhone 16’s features, which are said to span from a new power-efficient display to larger screens, better zoom lenses, an action button and, perhaps not surprisingly, a suite of new gen-AI powered features.

Read more: Best iPhone of 2024

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However, the iPhone 16 is still presumably six months away and nothing will be confirmed until Apple’s iPhone event in the fall. Still, these rumors could give us an idea of what to expect from the next iPhone.

Here are the most credible rumors for the iPhone 16.

Will the iPhone 16 fold?

Probably not. The newest rumors suggest Apple has been working on iPhone Flip models in two different sizes, though there have been difficulties in making the devices to Apple’s standards. The company may also be working on a folding tablet with a screen around the size of an iPad Mini. Even though virtually every major phone-maker — from Google to Oppo to OnePlus and Samsung — have launched their own bendable handsets, Apple has been characteristically quiet about whether there will ever be an iPhone Flip or an iPhone Fold.

Prior rumors said Apple may not launch its own flexible screen device until 2025. Samsung hasn’t let phone fans forget it — by releasing an app that will let Apple phone owners experience a Z Fold-esque experience by placing two iPhones side-by-side.

iPhone 16 Pro models to get bigger screens?

Apple has maintained the two screen sizes for iPhone Pro models since 2020 when it launched the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Pro and the 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max. However, that’s rumored to change with the iPhone 16 Pro models, which might get bigger screens.

Display analyst Ross Young suggested earlier this year that the iPhone 16 Pro models will have larger screens, putting the sizes at 6.3 inches for the iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9 inches for the iPhone 16 Pro Max. That rumor was later corroborated by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who said the iPhone 16 Pro models could grow by “a couple tenths of an inch diagonally.”

The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus models are believed to be sticking with the current 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch sizes. If the size increase is accurate, it would be yet another move from Apple to distinguish its Pro iPhone models from its regular ones.

iPhone 15 screen sizes

  • iPhone 15: 6.1 inches.
  • iPhone 15 Plus: 6.7 inches.
  • iPhone 15 Pro: 6.1 inches.
  • iPhone 15 Pro Max: 6.7 inches.

Rumored iPhone 16 screen sizes

  • iPhone 16: 6.1 inches.
  • iPhone 16 Plus: 6.7 inches.
  • iPhone 16 Pro: 6.3 inches.
  • iPhone 16 Pro Max: 6.9 inches.

iPhone 16 gets more AI tricks

One of the most salient selling points of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series and Google’s Pixel 8 lineup were each of their souped-up AI tips and tricks, and it wouldn’t be a major shock if Apple went in the same direction. Apple CEO Tim Cook has gone on the record this year confirming Apple sees “a huge opportunity for Apple with gen AI and AI.”

According to Gurman’s Power On newsletter, iOS 18 will feature generative AI technology that “should improve how both Siri and the Messages app can field questions and auto-complete sentences.”

A September report from the Information says Apple plans to use large language models, a crucial part of generative AI, to make Siri smarter. The report said this feature is expected to be released with an iPhone software update next year. 

Read More: iPhone iOS 18: A Possible Big Leap In AI

iPhone 16 design: New action button?

In March, AppleInsider published a collection of photographs purportedly displaying 3D-printed dummy models of the rumored iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. The images revealed that the iPhone 16 may have a vertical camera stack as opposed to a diagonal one and an action button, similar the one on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro.

iPhone 16 gets more power-efficient display?

Another change that could make its way to iPhone 16 displays is greater power efficiency. Samsung Display is apparently developing a new material set, dubbed M14, specifically for Apple, according to a TheElec report, which says the new technology should arrive on iPhones launching next year. M14 will replace the blue fluorescent technology that’s used now with blue phosphorescence technology, creating an even more power-efficient screen than the current LTPO ones used on Pro models, the report says.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

iPhone 16 gets better zoom?

Both the iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max could both have 5x telephoto lenses next year. According to Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo, a tetraprism lens will make its way to both Pro models next year, as opposed to just the Pro Max model. Apple equipped the iPhone 15 Pro with a 12-megapixel 3x optical zoom, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a 12-megapixel 5x optical zoom camera, which is the equivalent of 120mm lens on a full-frame camera.

If this rumor is true, it could mark a breakthrough in design. When Apple launched the 15 Pro Max with its 5x telephoto lens, it cited the phone’s bigger body as to why the Pro Max had it, but the Pro didn’t.

iPhone 16 processors: A18 chip for all models?

In a break with the past two years, all four iPhone 16 models will apparently get a next-generation Apple chipset, which will all receive A18 branding. According to a MacRumors report citing Jeff Pu, an executive analyst for Haitong International Securities, all four models will have an A18 series chip with Pro iPhone models getting an A18 Bionic Pro and base models getting a regular A18.

The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus currently have an A16 Bionic, which debuted on the 2022 iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max, while the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max run on the A17 Pro processor. Pu says the A18 chip will be manufactured with TSMC’s cutting-edge 3 nanometer process.

Read more: Apple iPhone SE 4 Rumors: iPhone 14 Design, Face ID and More



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